to the store. Several trees/telephone poles/street lights down. Only traffic lights working were on the main highway. Not a lot of people in the store. I got the impression that most people around here don’t have power back yet. Like I said yesterday, we got lucky.

From about 4-9PM yesterday. So we had a cold, dark dinner. But it came back and overall we had an OK night despite the unsettling wind gusts. Today will still be windy but things should be gradually calming down. Hopefully back to a normal schedule tomorrow. We got lucky compared to NYC and other areas that are now severely flooded.

Starting to howl out there. It will get worse through the day and into tomorrow night. Everything is cancelled for tomorrow and will likely be for Tuesday as well. We expect to lose power. Only questions are when and for how long.

Because the storm is predicted to spend a lot of time inland and go right over western NY, we decided to sit tight here. We don’t want to get trapped up there unable to come back because of problems with roads/bridges/flooding (these have been unfortunately common in recent years). So I did a big shopping trip this morning and I’ll get the stuff outside all put away tomorrow. We expect to lose power for at least a day or two. SBU will probably be closed Monday and Tuesday, looks like. We’ll see how things go.

We’re bugging out Sunday morning for Palmyra, which will be cold and rainy but should be mostly out of the storm. This could be worse for LI than Irene – larger storm and slower moving. I don’t have to teach until Thursday and if Tuesday classes are cancelled I don’t have to teach at all next week (exam on Tuesday to be given by my TA can be given on Thursday).

Looks like we may need to bug out Sunday. The trajectories of the hurricane are still way up in the air though. We’ll wait another 24h or so to decide. The plan will be to head up to Palmyra. My course has an exam on Tuesday, which I can have the TA administer.